On Saturday, October 5 the Center opens its doors to the public for a day of free events from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The Festival celebrates artists, scholars, writers and thinkers working at the intersections of history, medicine, art, and the humanities.

Our program includes activities on three floors, an introduction to bibliophilic delights drawn from some of our more than 500,000 volumes, behind-the-scenes tours of the book and paper conservation laboratory, and other historical gems, plus a rarely screened film from the National Library of Medicine’s collection starring Gene Kelly as a sailor suffering combat fatigue.

Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy presents anatomical drawing workshops, a medical wax moulage demonstration, and speakers including Carl Schoonover on premodern neuroscience, Dániel Margócsy on “artist of death” Frederik Ruysch, Mark Dery on his adventures in the NYAM library, and other explorations of the surprisingly fertile intersections of art and medicine.

All events are free, except for anatomical workshops and the after party. Partygoers will be treated to an open bar, medical-inspired tunes by DJ Friese Undine, and cartoons from the NLM’s collections spanning the silent era to the early 1960s curated by historian Michael Sappol.